Murder.
Oh. She wrote about it.
Angela Lansbury. Great, great Angela Lansbury. I always thought she seemed like such a nice person. But more than anything, she was a great actress. She was acclaimed on Broadway and on film, like her role in “Mame!,” and many more. Not to mention her campy TV series, Murder, She Wrote.
I’m writing about Ms. Lansbury, because today is her birthday, October 16, 1925. She stayed on this Earth for quite some time. More than 96 years, in fact. She went on to other things on October 11, 2022.
Her entrance came in London, England. Her mother was an Irish actress. Her father was an English timber magnate and Communist politician. He died when she was ten. At the start of World War II, her mother took young Angela and her brothers to live in New York City. In New York, Angela studied acting. Eventually, she moved to Hollywood, taking small film roles.
She had a fair amount of success early on. But the thing was, she found that she was being typecast as an older villainous character. So she packed up her bags, headed back to New York and London, and hit the stage. In 1962, she won acclaim for her work in the film “The Manchurian Candidate,” but then, by 1966, she garnered her first of five competitive Tony Awards in the title role of the musical “Mame!.” I bet she was grand.
Anyway, these days, I see her on “Murder, She Wrote.” I love that goofy show. They are completely 1980ish and as campy as they come sometimes.
But. Like so many other TV shows, it deals with a very real subject: Murder in the United States of America.
It is a problem. Always has been. However, these days, it seems to be coming around more frequently.
Consider this.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines murder as the deliberate killing of one human being by another. That seems pretty straightforward to me.
In 2019, the estimated number of murders in the nation was 16,425. This marked a 3.4 percent increase from the 2015 figure, and an 11.6 percent increase from the number in 2010.
I’d like to know the figures for the past two years, especially. The increase in “anyone can carry a gun” across the nation has certainly boosted the numbers. At least, it feels that way to me. Every day, on the morning news, comes another report of someone being shot and killed in our “local” viewing area, which includes Dayton.
I just sourced the CDC website. The total number of murders for 2022 was 26,031.
The distribution of murders varied across regions in the United States. The South reported the highest percentage, with 48.7 percent of the estimated number of murders occurring in this region. The Midwest accounted for 20.8 percent, the West for 19.3 percent, and the Northeast for 11.2 percent of the total murders. Oh, the Northeast. They don’t kill one another in New Hampshire, do they? Not too many.
Here is a look, state by state. (I believe these figures are from 2019)
|
State
|
Total Number of Homicides
|
|---|---|
|
Alabama
|
487
|
|
Alaska
|
58
|
|
Arizona
|
529
|
|
Arkansas
|
290
|
|
California
|
1,639
|
|
Colorado
|
280
|
|
Connecticut
|
134
|
|
Delaware
|
80
|
|
Florida
|
1,214
|
|
Georgia
|
617
|
|
Hawaii
|
29
|
|
Idaho
|
37
|
|
Illinois
|
1,055
|
|
Indiana
|
521
|
|
Iowa
|
119
|
|
Kansas
|
234
|
|
Kentucky
|
368
|
|
Louisiana
|
642
|
|
Maine
|
24
|
|
Maryland
|
585
|
|
Massachusetts
|
190
|
|
Michigan
|
865
|
|
Minnesota
|
182
|
|
Mississippi
|
317
|
|
Missouri
|
721
|
|
Montana
|
36
|
|
Nebraska
|
111
|
|
Nevada
|
408
|
|
New Hampshire
|
19
|
|
New Jersey
|
366
|
|
New Mexico
|
246
|
|
New York
|
1,087
|
|
North Carolina
|
680
|
|
North Dakota
|
20
|
|
Ohio
|
1,081
|
|
Oklahoma
|
569
|
|
Oregon
|
192
|
|
Pennsylvania
|
1,055
|
|
Rhode Island
|
27
|
|
South Carolina
|
464
|
|
South Dakota
|
40
|
|
Tennessee
|
708
|
|
Texas
|
1,937
|
|
Utah
|
62
|
|
Vermont
|
10
|
|
Virginia
|
598
|
|
Washington
|
324
|
|
West Virginia
|
125
|
|
Wisconsin
|
465
|
|
Wyoming
|
24
|
I think Cabot Cove was in Maine. They only have 24 murders per year in Maine. I’m pretty sure that would be about one season’s worth on Murder, She Wrote.
But here is the thing. I can’t imagine intentionally killing someone. I have serious guilt issues when I kill a pesky fly. I get sick to my stomach if I accidentally hit a squirrel while driving. I just can’t imagine the emotional trauma a person must feel when committing murder.
Or perhaps some people do not feel a thing. Which may explain why there are 26,301 murders per year where we live.
And that, my friends, is a crime.
It’s murder. She wrote.
“”””””””””””””””””””
“There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.”
― Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
“”””””””””””””””””””
“It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
“”””””””””””””””””””
“The justifications of men who kill should always be heard with skepticism, said the monster.”
― Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls
“”””””””””””””””””””
